


knife to a gunfight

by Trojie



Series: Inception Bingo 2016 [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Bloodplay, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Unsafe Sex, not the healthiest fuckbuddy relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:56:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur is about to go off on a job he knows is going to be boring, so he calls Eames to help him blow off steam before he goes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	knife to a gunfight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Inception Bingo, prompt "bloodplay"

'I've asked you to do worse things,' Arthur points out. 'Assassinations, for a start.'

'That was once,' Eames says, eyeing Arthur carefully. 'And you paid me for it.'

'I'll pay you for this, if it'll make you feel better. Will it help if it's business, Eames. Quid pro quo?'

But he's not asking for an assassination, he's asking for _Eames_. And Eames has known Arthur long enough, and fucked around with him frequently enough, and found reasons not to take jobs that put him on the opposing side enough, that he doesn't want this to be business, if he's going to do it. He didn't want it to be business the other … however many times Arthur asked, either. He never does. 

And yet Arthur always frames it that way. Every single time.

'I just need to let off a bit of steam,' Arthur says. 'I have to be in Reykjavik tomorrow and I'm going to be stuck there for three months. It's corporate, I probably won't even be going under with the extractor.' He steps into Eames's space, sliding one hand up to rest on Eames's shoulder, and the other opens palm-up, to show something shining there. 'I want a fight and a fuck before I leave, and I'd like them to be with the same person. Ideally, with you.'

Eames looks down at what Arthur's showing him. A switchblade. Not gold-plated or ivory-inlaid or any of the other things Eames half-expects to have come out of the pockets of one of Arthur's expensive suits. No, this thing is hardworking, practical, serviceable. The embodiment of the _other_ half of Arthur's mercurial split-personality. This isn't for decoration, this is for use.

Eames clears his throat. 'With a knife.'

Arthur smiles, as sharp as the blade and the creases pressed into his trousers. 'Just to keep things interesting. You can have it, if you want.' He twirls it through his fingers and presents it, handle-first, to Eames. Eames reaches, and Arthur pulls it back, with a thoughtful look that bodes either terribly or well, depending on if you're asking Eames's higher brain function or his lizard libido. 

Eames knows better than to flinch when Arthur pulls the steel down the front of his shirt, but all he does is snick off the buttons, score a line in a perfectly good leather belt, and leave a phantom trail of pressure running down Eames's suddenly achingly hard cock where it's straining behind his fly. 

'Here,' says Arthur, just when Eames thinks breathing is an impossibility. 'Think fast.'

The knife is in Eames's hand and Arthur is too far inside his reach for it to be any damn use, so it only _stays_ in his hand for the barest part of a moment before Arthur punches him in the jaw three times til he's reeling enough to drop it. 

The thing is, Eames hates sparring with Arthur, has hated it for years. Because Eames has some training in boxing and (usually, but not always) the weight advantage, but Arthur has reach on him and is _fucking ruthless_. If they're not actually fighting, if the point of this isn't to put Arthur down hard and make him stay there, then Eames always loses. This time like every other time - Eames lands one or two blows, trying to avoid the knife, but Arthur is too fast for him and more importantly he wants to be doing whatever this fucked up thing they're doing is. Eames loses his shirt entirely, sliced into ribbons and yanked free of his belt, which is getting the brunt of those downward, shirt-cutting strokes, when Arthur has to pull and twist away to avoid sticking Eames in the gut. 

Eames is having a hard time concentrating, thinking about that - thinking about what happens if Arthur's sharp edges get too close. His punches are losing finesse as his blood goes sharply southward instead of to his brain. 

The knife-point nicks the fabric of Eames's trousers, so close to his cock he can feel the split second of tension it makes, pulling the cloth tight. His eyes roll back in his head. Arthur catches him by one wrist, but that puts him too close. Eames sets his weight and hauls Arthur over his hip, dumps him hard, then twists up and around until he's got Arthur's arm ratcheted up high and painful behind his back. He takes the knife out of Arthur's suddenly limp fingers, and puts it to his throat. They're both breathing faster than they should be. 

Eames swallows.

Arthur's sharp smile is audible in the silence. Eames's pulse is pounding. 'Interesting,' Arthur says, and Eames has to work to not press the knife harder. Arthur grinds back against him. 'Knives, huh?'

'Believe me, I'm just as surprised as you,' Eames says, through his teeth, which is apt seeing as that's somewhat of a lie.

Arthur squirms, which is fucking stupid for a man whose carotid artery is a hair's breadth from a blade, and says, 'How about we move this to the fucking portion of the evening? Right now?'

Eames is very much on board with that plan. But Arthur is … whatever else Arthur is, Arthur is not someone it's safe to trust with some things. Information. Vulnerabilities. Himself.

'Are we leaving the knife behind?' he asks, and he has to clamp down on his movements because the damn thing moves with every breath Arthur takes, rides the motion of the cartilage under the skin, and there's a tiny smear of wetness trickling along Eames's thumb that suggests Arthur's bleeding already. Eames is so hard he might faint. 

'Do you actually want to?' Arthur asks. Eames pulls away, but keeps his arm by his side, doesn't drop the knife. Arthur twists enough to look him in the eye, now that the immediate danger of having his throat cut is gone. 'I mean, I wasn't originally planning on bringing it with me, but …' He eyes Eames shrewdly. 'Seems as if it works for you.'

He's not wrong. 

'Does it work for you?' Eames fires back. This is not something you just decide to do on the spur of the moment. Although, this is Arthur. If he brings a knife to a gunfight, there's no doubt he's already thought out all the permutations of its use.

Arthur trails the tip of his finger softly up Eames's stomach and across his chest, til it just touches his nipple, which hardens in response. 'Anything that makes someone react like this works for me,' he says. ' _Fuck,_ Eames.'

'How about the blood?' Eames asks in a low voice, because in for a penny, in for a pound, and he never - he's never actually managed to chase this particular interest all the way down the rabbit hole. But with Arthur - Arthur won't spook. Arthur's already got a tiny garnet-brown smudge on his bobbing throat. 'Would you let me cut you, Arthur?'

Arthur's eyes flick back up to him. 'Did your last set of bloodwork come back clean?' he counters.

'Do you think I'd be working another job with Rodriguez if it hadn't? How about yours?'

'I'm clean,' Arthur says. He pulls the knife out of Eames's hand, closes the blade up, drops it into Eames's pocket, and sets his hands on Eames's hips, pulling him around so they face each other properly. 'So yeah. Eames. I'll let you cut me, if that's your thing.' 

His mouth is warm and his teeth are sharp when he kisses Eames, bites at his bottom lip harder than most people would, a proper bite, not a playful nip. He runs his hands over Eames's arse, pulls him in tight. 'You got any other preferences for how you want this to go?'

'You said you wanted a fuck,' Eames points out.

'Mmm,' Arthur says, his teeth now fastened in Eames's earlobe. 'Pitching or catching?'

Eames shoves his own hands down Arthur's pants in retaliation, or tries, but the damn things really are painted on. He goes for Arthur's belt instead. 'Oh, we're being reductive.'

Arthur makes something that dangerously approaches a growl when Eames finally manages to get a hand on his cock. 'It's a simple question, Eames. I swear, one of these days I'm gonna put you across my knee and spank you,' he says. 'You are such a pain in my ass.'

'I wouldn't say no to that,' Eames says, jerking Arthur's cock, sliding his thumb over the head of it just to feel the slickness under his skin. He likes it, the wetness, the mess. He's always liked that about sex. Humans are, in general, messes. There's something intimate about being allowed to touch that part of someone, the things they can't consciously control about their bodies. 'I've never been particularly fussed on whether I'm giving or receiving, darling. You must have noticed by now,' he says, and they've been moving this entire time, the bed is finally in sight, looking unreal and potentially uncomfortable, just like every hotel bed ever. 'But you know I like it when you order me around.'

Arthur's eyes gleam in the low light. 'Get on the fucking bed, Eames.'

It takes all of five minutes to get them fully naked, Arthur's skin so white and scarred against the dark duvet cover that Eames just wants to run his hands all over it. Arthur's hands are all over Eames's arse, fingers dripping slick with lube, and they know this part, they've done this part not that infrequently over the years they've known each other, so Eames knows exactly how to spread his knees and arch his back so that Arthur can finger him open from underneath. He knows how to lick Arthur's throat, although the sweet tang of that tiny smear of blood is new, exciting. He knows how to bite, too. 

'You're such a brat,' Arthur murmurs, and Eames would point out that Arthur's younger, twinkier, and infinitely more bratty than he is, but suddenly he's got three fingers, sopping wet, up his arse at once, and he's moaning into the thin skin of Arthur's throat and really, he's never been that wedded to stereotypes.

He lets Arthur take over. Lets him push and pull, and licks the sweat off him, and thinks about that knife, and the taste of iron. Doesn't think about how Arthur always manages to do this, or something like this, to him - turn off his alarms, relax his boundaries, open his borders. That's a worry for when the bed's empty beside him again. For now, it's just slick fucking noises, lube on the inside of his thighs, and Arthur's messiness, for only Eames to see

He's known he's in trouble for a long time now, but he's a gambler. He can't help going all in, and hoping Arthur will call.

'Get up, you lazy fuck,' Arthur says after … oh, ten years or so, or maybe a couple of minutes. Eames is floating. He smacks at Eames's arse until Eames raises it, then puts his hand on the small of Eames's back and pushes him down again. The head of his cock presses against the fingered-wide way into Eames's body for just a moment, and then pressure, god, so much pressure, and he's sliding in, wide head pushing in one blunt movement instead of the compromise of four fingers at once. Eames pants, and bears down. 

By the time Arthur's in all the way, Eames's breath is whining in his throat, and his head is hanging low. God, he loves this. He loves this with Arthur. It's not that it isn't good with other people, or that he doesn't also like throwing Arthur down and fucking all hell out of him, but this - Arthur knows him about as well as anyone can. 

Eames tries very hard to keep metaphor out of his life. But he spends his time being other people, internalising their quirks and reproducing them on demand, and Arthur spends his time planning for the worst of all eventualities, and they don't trust each other, because that would be stupid, but they know each other. And so here they are, both naked, in each other's hands, and Eames doesn't even know what he is on the inside any more, but Arthur is still willing to - well. You can fill in the blanks. 

Something cold and smooth nudges under Eames's fingers where they're splayed on Arthur's sternum. 

'Do it, Eames,' says Arthur, curling Eames's fingers around it and popping the blade.

You don't need to make much of a cut to see blood. Arthur doesn't even flinch when Eames draws a line with the blade down his belly. Inside, though, he feels Arthur's cock twitch. The red wells up, then spills from the hair-fine cut, and starts to dry. Dead blood. Brown. The correct colour for rubies is called pigeon's blood, but they're pink, pretty much. Deepest cerise, maybe, not this colour. People aren't rubies inside, they're earth. Eames has his fingers padding in it before he even realises he's doing it, smudging fingerprints across Arthur's skin like cat pawprints in ink on some medieval manuscript - a beautiful accident. 

He moves his finger down, up and around, leaves a flourish behind. He's done this before with Arthur, with their come, post-coital and sleepy, but it didn't feel like this. 

'Is this the part where you paint me like one of your French girls?' Arthur asks in a low voice. 

'Draw,' Eames corrects, but he does anyway. Paint. Fingertips for brushes and thumbnail for a palette knife, scratching away through the dried up blood to leave highlights, relief. He rocks back and forwards on Arthur's cock. He feels drunk, or hypnotised. 

Arthur rests his hands on the small of Eames's back, and thrusts softly. 'Fuck, Eames,' he says, every time Eames picks up the knife to refresh his supply of colour. 'Oh, fuck, look at you.' He reaches up, pinches one of Eames's nipples. The sudden spike of pleasure makes Eames twist, and the knifepoint digs deeper than he meant it to. 

Arthur hisses, and twists Eames's nipple harder. 'Yeah, that's it,' he says. 'God, you're beautiful, Eames.' He thumbs across Eames's cheekbone. 'So fucking pretty when you're hurting.'

That little deeper cut is seeping blood now, not drying up fast like the shallow ones were. It's deep, dark - red-brown, with a shine on it that dulls almost as soon as it stops moving, when the pressure from the heart isn't pushing it any more. 

Eames smears a hand print over the swirls he put there before. 'I could -' Eames clears his throat, it's rasping. 'I could say the same about you.'

Arthur wraps his hands around Eames's hips, and shoves up into him hard. 'That's it,' he says when Eames clutches at him, fingernails digging in just to keep his balance. 'You're so good for me, fuck, c'mon. Want you to let go for me, Eames, make even more goddamn mess, I'm gonna make you lick it up off me, clean me up. Hold you down til you clean me up with your fucking tongue, and you're gonna let me, aren't you.'

Eames is. Eames will. Kiss all that earth-red blood up, slick and bitter with come, and it will probably make him hard again. He wants to say, he'll do everything Arthur's telling him to, and more. He'll kill Arthur's marks and run Arthur's cons and suck Arthur's cock under restaurant tables when their contacts are late to show. He'll grow bloody tentacles in dreams for Arthur if that's what he wants. 

Just as long as Arthur keeps doing this - letting him in. Breaking him open. Arthur fucks and fucks and fucks like he wants Eames to have bruises on his soul, assuming he has one. His hand slips in the blood that's still sluggishly being forced out of that last cut by the pistoning of Arthur's hips, he's trying to hang on but he's going to fall. 

'You're close,' Arthur says, straining, still fucking up hard enough to shift Eames with every thrust, hitting every target there is to hit. Eames's pleasure is ratcheted up so tight he can't breathe any more. 'You're so fucking close, just come, Eames, come on my dick, c'mon, what do you need, tell me, tell me so I can -'

He's grabbing at Eames now, smearing blood between them, up Eames's thighs, and when he reaches up to touch Eames's face, thumb his lower lip, that sharp iron taste shocks its way through the amorphous haze of arousal. 

'Oh, oh fuck, fuck -' 

'Yeah, that's it,' Arthur growls. He pinches Eames's nipple again, and again, and Eames grinds down, _bounces_ himself on Arthur's cock as much as he can and comes, thick and wet, in stripes across Arthur's belly. Arthur makes a hideous, hungry noise, reaches up and yanks him down by his hair for a gasping kiss as he loses himself buried deep in Eames's arse. 

Eames is still floating, hot and bruised and satisfied, when Arthur pulls out and lets him fall to one side. He's dizzy, broken open, tasting of metal. It's like pulling out of a forgery. Arthur always puts him so deep inside himself, it's like he has to wake up again afterwards. 

Eames knows he needs to stop doing this, but then again, he always tells himself that. 

He lies quietly, putting himself back together, and waits for the mattress to shift. Arthur's got a flight to catch. And this was only ever quid pro quo. He watches the muscles in Arthur's back shift. There's a dried-up dribble of blood on the crest of one hip where it must have runnelled down from his belly.

Eames is ready for the part where Arthur leaves. They've done this so many times before.

Except Arthur rolls over onto his back, and opens his eyes. 

'Fuck. I can't go three months. Come to Reykjavik with me.'

**Author's Note:**

> Continued in [they all cheat at cards](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7675009)


End file.
